Nine months before the official ceremony to mark the 200th anniversary of Koenig & Bauer AG (KBA) in September 2017, the foundations were laid in January at the company’s Würzburg parent plant for a new digital and flexographic press demo center. On March 14, KBA chairman Claus-Bolza-Schünemann and Christoph Müller, CEO of the subsidiaries KBA-Digital & Web Solutions AG & Co. KG and KBA-Flexotecnica S.p.A., laid the foundation stone of the new building.

The €6 million investment is the latest in a series of new buildings at the Würzburg site, following a new logistics center and design building in 2001, two new production halls in 2003 and 2008 and a new foundry in 2012.

Bolza-Schünemann noted the successful realignment of KBA Group in growth sectors like packaging, digital and industrial functional printing, where 70% of the group’s new press revenue is generated in the packaging sector. The group headquarters in Würzburg was chosen as the

As counterpart to the demo center for sheetfed offset presses and processing systems at Radebeul in Saxony, the new demo center will feature a RotaJET digital printing press for commercial, publication and decor printing; a flexo rotary press from KBA-Digital & Web Würzburg’s Italian subsidiary KBA-Flexotecnica for flexible packaging; and a newly developed sheetfed flexo press from KBA-Digital & Web for direct printing on corrugated cardboard. The center is due to be ready for occupancy in autumn 2017.

“KBA-Digital & Web builds the world’s largest inkjet roll-fed rotary presses and in the future also high performance sheetfed presses to meet the growing demand for corrugated cardboard packaging,” Bolza-Schünemann said. “Our Italian subsidiary KBA-Flexotecnica offers technically outstanding flexo rotary presses for film, paper and lightweight cardboard packaging. We want to present our systems for the above growth sectors live in action at the new demo center.”